


You can rest now

by HogwartsToAlexandria



Series: Marie's Stony Shorts 2019 [21]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Death from Old Age, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Married Couple, Old Steve Lets Go, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21899164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsToAlexandria/pseuds/HogwartsToAlexandria
Summary: What if Steve and Tony had been married for years, what if instead of Pepper it was Steve who'd let Tony rest. What if...Inspired by Rebekah (@wingheadx) on Twitter, the dealer of the angst i wasn't ready for.Stony Bingo 2019 Fill, N1: Picture Prompt of Steve's hand on Tony's suit in A1
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Marie's Stony Shorts 2019 [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1649599
Comments: 3
Kudos: 62
Collections: Captain America/Iron Man Bingo





	You can rest now

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [AU: Tony comforting Steve as he dies](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/543949) by @wingheadx. 



> Heyyy so Rebekah was dealing the angst, as she so often does and I said I would write this and today is the day so here comes. The angst. Hopefully I kissed it better with the ending but nothing is certain.
> 
> -unbetad

The wreckage was everywhere around him, no matter where he looked, no matter where he stood. The earth was upturned, corpses of enemies, killed by both their team and their own forces, laid everywhere abandoned. But Steve didn't see any of it, couldn't tell where he stood anymore, not since he'd seen him do it, not since he'd seen Tony snap and read the movements of his lips as he'd said it one last time "I am Iron Man". 

  
His last words, his last act of heroism, the latest and last proof of his grandeur as Tony saved the universe and Thanos disappeared in a cloud of his filth, dusted like he'd dusted, killed like he'd murdered, a swarm of his essence that would become a distant memory, colorless, soundless, harmless now. 

  
Steve's ears buzzed until he thought himself deaf from the shock as he made his way to Tony, closer and closer with every step he took and yet he felt it inside him, the distance, greater and greater, that separated Tony from life, that split his heart in two as his husband's blood slowed inside his veins and he fell to his knees in front of him. 

  
He reached out without thinking, felt the sheer heat of his armor under his palm, murmured for FRIDAY's estimate, kept his eyes open even as they filled with tears that he didn't feel when she confirmed what he already knew. This was the end of Tony's journey, this was the end of Steve's life. Part of the journey was always going to be the end, they knew that, both of them did, both of them thought they were ready for it and maybe Tony had been, but Steve was crumpling on his knees, at Tony's feet, between his legs clad with the red of his suit dirty from the fight, ready to be free. 

  
Steve's fingers clenched above the reactor's light, Tony's metal hand pressed against the back of his own, never so fragile, never so pale hand. 

  
The look in Tony's eyes, halfway between despair and peace, oscillated with the exhaustion of his last deed and Steve knew what his role was here. No matter how it tore his heart in shreds, no matter the state of his waning strengths, he said it, he set the man he loved free. 

  
"You can rest now."

  
And Tony's head lolled to the side with one last spark tuning down and off in his eyes. Dead. Extinguished, never to return. 

  
The power of Steve's sobs bent him in half, beat him down till he was lying, prostrated along Tony's side, his arms squeezing the suit until it creaked under him. He howled and he wished there were more aliens to kill, he wished he was disappearing into the dust of the stones too. He wished Tony had taken him with him. 

  
He hadn't been ready, he would never have been, just like he knew he'd never heal from losing the one thing he could never live without. 

  
Steve didn't see the others as they too, fell to their knees, didn't register the cries and dull thuds of Pepper's, and Peter's, and Rhodey's pain behind him. Nothing. He was empty. Darkness filled his vision and he passed out, Tony's last gaze printed on his eyelids and on his brain, in his hands as they laid limp around Tony's neck and in his hair, his body heat already fading. 

  
Years and years later, twenty-three to be exact, Steve told that story to his grandchildren, in his bed, where he'd been laying for the better part of the last two months, unable to do much but talk, and reminisce. 

  
He told Morgan's son about the first time Tony had told the world who he was, and about the last time Tony had told him who he didn't have the strength to be anymore. He told Morgan's daughters of the first argument they'd had about Tony putting himself in harm's way, and about the last conversation they'd had when their grandfather had made the most singular and most extraordinary discovery of his life. He told them all about how he'd fell in love with the greatest man earth had ever seen, and how he'd endeavored to care for his needs and outbursts of self-sacrificial will. 

  
It was time, and so he told them about the last time he'd seen life in his husband's eyes, the last time he'd been able to let him know just how much and how completely he loved him and he told them about how he was ready to see him again, on the other side. 

  
And so Steve Rogers fell asleep that night, his head lolling to the side and his breath leaving him, never to return in this world, but to fill him to the brim with life in the next.


End file.
